I couldn’t help but smile as I followed her to the car—I had seen exactly what her game was, without a doubt. She was playing her father like a freaking fiddle, and it was impressive to see—here was a man who the cops, the rival gangs, the entire world was openly terrified of, and his daughter seemed to have him wrapped firmly and completely around her little finger. With a couple of well-placed “daddies” and random discussions of her hair, she’d turned him into mush. I’d seen the side of her she obviously kept hidden from him the day before, and it was striking to see how different she acted when she was trying to keep her father from guessing anything that had been going on.

 

We drove out to the city as normal, and I fought the urge to ask her about what I had just seen. After all, she was paying me to keep my mouth shut, for all intents and purposes—the last thing she needed was me prying into the ins and outs of how she kept her father in hand and under control. All I knew was that, once again, Maria had revealed a little layer to me that I doubted anyone else knew existed. She was smarter than she looked, and I was coming to believe that she was a formidable ally—if only because she had control of one of the most powerful men in the country—and I didn’t want her turning into a formidable enemy.

 

I didn’t know what the phone call had been about, but the look she had given me had suggested that it hadn’t been something she wanted her father to know about, not one little bit. Of course I jumped in to cover for her—not just because I would lose a client and God knows how much money if I didn’t, but because there was more than just a little thrill at getting one over on a man as powerful as her father was.

 

I enjoyed the little secret we shared, enjoyed knowing that between us we had outsmarted her father. I looked in the mirror and took her in for a moment—she was wearing less make-up than usual, and appeared slightly less “done” than she had the previous few days. She looked strikingly different like this—older, somehow, more sophisticated. My eye lingered on her for longer than I had intended, and I had to force myself to keep my attention on the road.

 

She directed me to a salon on the other side of the city—so she hadn’t been lying to her father, after all. I had been toying with what she might ask me to do next—after viewing those apartments without her father’s knowledge, maybe we’d take on some drug deals, a couple of cartels? She was a rebel, no doubt about that, and I was looking forward to seeing what she came up with next.

 

The salon booked her in at once, and I sat in the seats in the waiting room as she got her hair done. She let her eyes drift shut as they washed her scalp, and I wondered if she’d been up all night stressing over what she’d been up to. I know that if I had an inkling that a man like Lucca might figure out my nefarious deeds, I’d be fucking terrified too.

 

Another man joined me after a while, and I glanced over at him in acknowledgment before going back to keeping an eye on Maria. Even though I wasn’t stupid enough to think something would happen between us, I couldn’t believe how much I was getting paid just to look at this woman all day long. She was like a piece of fine art, a pleasure just to take in, and growing more fascinating with every minute I spent in her presence.

 

The man sitting next to me followed my gaze to Maria, and let out a small snort-laugh. I turned to him, eyes hard.

 

“Can I help you?” I asked, my voice clipped.

 

“That your girlfriend?” He nodded in Maria’s direction. I made a non-committal grunt.

 

“She’s pretty fucking gorgeous, man, congratulations,” he remarked, and I rolled my eyes at his words. As though Maria being pretty was my achievement.

 

“Hey, I’m just saying,” the man held his hands up defensively. “If that was my girlfriend, I don’t think I’d ever let her leave the house, you know?”

 

He leaned in, grinning, as if expecting me to drop the façade and agree, but I stared him out until he shifted a few seats over and picked up a magazine, blocking his face from my view—as well he might. Did he offer commentary on all the women who came in here? What an asshole.

 

That guy was just the first, though—the first in a long line of dudes who seemed determined to let Maria know just how hot they thought she was. I was taken aback by the constancy of it. Because I usually followed a few paces behind her, it wasn’t always clear to whoever was eyeing her up that we were “together,” and I saw just the most unmitigated wave of bullshit aimed in her direction from the minute she stepped out of that salon. Something about the sundress seemed to attract the kind of assholes who weren’t going to take no for an answer.

 

The first one came as I was waiting outside as Maria picked herself up a coffee and a croissant for breakfast; I kept an eye on her through the glass, the words of what that dude had said earlier in the salon echoing in my brain. And then, I saw it—a guy standing in the queue behind her, his hand snaking out around her waist. I took a second to figure out what was going on, and then quickly strode inside and towards the two of them.

 

She stepped away from his hand as best she could, but it had already started to work its way down towards her ass. She drove an elbow awkwardly into his wrist, pushing him off, without once turning around—as though she was used to it. That thought weighed heavily on me as I got to her, and stepped in between her and the guy. She looked up and smiled at me warmly, and the guy seemed to clock what was going on and hurry away. I glared after him, and then glanced down at her.

 

“You okay?” I asked, concerned, but she shrugged.

 

“I’m okay,” she assured me. “I hate it, but I’m used to it. He’s just an asshole who doesn’t know how to deal with a woman in a dress.”

 

“Tell me about it,” I replied, distracted, as I looked around the place and wondered how many of the rest of these guys had longed to touch her like that pervert had. A few of them were regarding me out of the corner of their eyes, as if sizing me up, but we made it out of there without any more hassle.

 

I wish I could have said the same for the rest of the day—hell, the rest of the week if I was being honest with myself. Every time I turned around, it seemed as though some guy was determined to get his hands all over Maria—whether it was some poor oblivious woman’s husband at a designer store or one of the street vendors flogging obviously fake bags, it was as though people couldn’t control themselves around her.

 

I was horrified, never having seen something like this happen so much over the course of just a couple of days. Yeah, I knew this shit happened to women and I would always intervene if I saw it going down, but I had assumed it was an irregular occurrence, something worth complaining about because it happened so rarely. But nope—if Maria was anything to go by, women were dealing with this stuff on a bi-hourly basis.

 

And, of course, it didn’t help that she seemed to have a habit of stumbling into these situations with an almost freaky prescience.

 

Much as I tried to keep her out of trouble, Maria had a habit of wandering straight towards it apparently without realizing the danger she was really in. I mean, agreeing to go down dark alleyways with dudes offering her even more of a discount on the bags she wanted so badly. Shrugging her shoulders and nodding when pervy restaurant owners offered to have her back after closing time for a private tasting. It felt as though I was having to jump in at every turn to keep her safe—and I had to admit, I was starting to find it a little endearing.

 

This woman was smart, no doubt, but she was naïve—she just hadn’t lived a life on the streets the way I had, so I couldn’t exactly blame her for not keeping an eye on herself the way someone like me might have. She was book-smart and knew how to get what she wanted, but she was also just insanely trusting to an almost terrifying degree.

 

“But he was just offering—”

 

“Trust me, he wasn’t offering anything but a chance to get in bed with you,” I promised her as the restaurant owner walked away shaking his head. I had shut him down firmly, and it looked as though it had pissed him off.

 

“How would you know?” She pouted, annoyed, picking at her salad and drumming her long nails on her mineral water.

 

“I’m not saying all guys have questionable motives, but…” I shrugged. “Most of them do. And if one of them who’s spent the entire time we’ve been here staring at your legs, tries to get you alone, he’s probably not just being friendly.”

 

“Ugh,” she snorted to herself. “Why do guys have to be such assholes?”

 

“Hey!” I protested, and she looked up at her and met my gaze steadily. She raised her eyebrows, as if daring me to get her to take it back. I didn’t bother—I knew there was no point and that she was basically right—as far as she was concerned, I was the one shitting on her good time, and she wasn’t exactly delighted about it.

 

I regarded her for a few seconds as she pouted down at her food—with her hair all blown out and the delicate straps of her dress showing off her shoulders, it wasn’t hard to see what all these guys saw in her. They grossed me out in a big way, but I had to admit it—she was beautiful. And smart. And…fuck, I was starting to get feelings for this girl that went beyond the professional.

 

I flashed back to how she’d been the morning before with her father, acting dumb but actually in complete control—it was her layers that fascinated me, that kept me intrigued. She wasn’t the spoiled pet I had first thought she was—she was a caged bird, trapped but searching for a way to escape her cage. And there was still so much more to find out.